Lungu in­au­gu­ra­tion halted pend­ing court rul­ing

LUSAKA — The in­au­gu­ra­tion of Zam­bian Pres­i­dent Edgar Lungu has been halted pend­ing a con­sti­tu­tional court rul­ing on the elec­tion re­sults, a re­port says.

The Zam­bia re­ports web­site said that the Sec­re­tary to Cab­i­net, Dr Roland Msiska, had sus­pended the in­au­gu­ra­tion which was slated for to­day.

The work­ers who were pre­par­ing the venue for the in­au­gu­ra­tion claimed that they were told by Msiska to stop the prepa­ra­tions pend­ing the con­sti­tu­tional court rul­ing.

“The Sec­re­tary to Cab­i­net, Dr Roland Msiska, ad­vised that we sus­pend prepa­ra­tions due to con­sti­tu­tional im­pli­ca­tions,” the uniden­ti­fied work­ers were quoted as say­ing.

Fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of the re­sults, op­po­si­tion leader Hakainde Hichilema claimed that cer­tain fac­tors within the re­cent polls were rigged.

Hichilema de­scribed the re­sults as a coup against the south­ern African coun­try’s demo­cratic pro­cesses.

He ac­cused the coun­try’s elec­toral body, the Zam­bia Elec­toral Com­mis­sion (ECZ), of ma­nip­u­lat­ing the re­sults in favour of Lungu’s Pa­tri­otic Front (PF), fol­low­ing which he ap­proached the court.

Both the Elec­toral Com­mis­sion and the rul­ing Pa­tri­otic Front have since re­jected Hichilema’s claims, stat­ing that the op­po­si­tion leader was mak­ing in­flam­ma­tory state­ments in a bid to rid him­self of frus­tra­tions. — AFP